Introduction

We are back! With more news on what we have been up to since our last post. Since last time, we have created a  Project Proposal, wrote up some objectives, figured out how many categories we want to have on the final guide,  and came up with strategies to overcome some future objectives we may encounter.

Objectives

Last week, we as a group came up with three main objectives that we plan to conquer over the next couple of weeks. Our first objective is to gather information on food resources in the West End, through online research. We broke down this objective into two sub-objectives; to find information on the resources provided to us from the community programmer at the Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH), and to expand the current list of resources to ensure the majority of available resources in the West End have been accounted for.

Our second objective is to call all of our relevant sources to validate and clarify our prior research. This includes validating that the information found online is up-to-date with the organization’s current programs, and clarifying any inquiries that may have arisen during our initial internet-only research phase.

Our third objective is to meet with the GNH Outreach Team to discuss how we can most effectively inform the public and members of the GNH of the new food resource guide that will be available. With the Outreach Team, we aim to discern the most plausible, yet effective, medium to distribute the information to those who need it the most. With these objectives in mind, we will be able to budget our time and effectively complete the project.

Achievement:

Since last time, we have achieved three important goals, we have:

  • Gained a better grasp of our aims and objectives,
  • Prioritized relevant sources from the list provided from GNH, and
  • Determined 11 main categories that will be used for sorting the resources

Although not large achievements, they have helped to solidify our base that we will be building on throughout the rest of this project.

Project Challenge

What
Our biggest challenge so far, has been coping and understanding our slight scope change. Our initial understanding of the project was to create a food resource guide in its entirety for the use of the GNH. When we confirmed our project with the course coordinator, he suggested not producing a resource guide, but rather provide the information needed to created a good resource guide instead.

So What
Although quite baffling at the start, we soon realized why. In one of our lectures, we learned the importance of the Asset-Based Community Development model (ABCD). ABCD states that we should focus more on what a community is doing well and further those positives, rather than search for and attempt to fix the negatives. In this way, people in the community play a larger role in determining their futures and are able to feel in control of their lives.

 Now What
This project encourages us to learn to use the model effectively, resulting in us being able to utilize it in our future projects. It allows us to observe firsthand the impact that the ABCD model can have on improving society when providing people the opportunity to succeed.

Future Objectives and Strategies

At this point, we have identified two objectives that we will most likely encounter in the future:

  • Finding reliable resources on how to make a successful resource guide, and
  • Ensuring validity of online information of food resources

To create a successful resource guide, we realized that there is probably no golden method that we can follow. Instead, we are going to research how other successful resource guides are being maintained, and attempt to model one (or a combination of a few) for the GNH food resource guide.

We also wanted to ensure the validity of our online research, making sure organizations still exist and programs are still in progress. To do this, we have decided to personally contact all organizations via phone calls or email (for more information, please refer to our Project Proposal page).

Next Time

We will keep you updated on our progress, but that is it for now. Expect to see more on our plans on how to successfully complete the project, until next time, we will see you all soon!